If You Only Knew

“It seems her husband has no idea who sent it,” I say.

“Ah. It was all a mistake, then?”

“That’s what we’re going with.”

He shrugs, a Gallic gesture that belies his very Irish name, a shrug that says, Ah, poor kid, people are stupid, whatcha gonna do. “She seems sweet.”

“She is.” I pause, not wholly comfortable with the topic. “So why the suit, Leo? Do you have a date? Those flowers aren’t really for your mom, are they?”

“Yes, they were. I don’t date. I’m strictly for recreational purposes.”

I feel an eye-roll coming on. “Then were you giving a performance?”

“Nope.”

“Shall I keep guessing, or does your dog need you and you really should be leaving?”

“I visit my mom every Sunday.”

“You sure you’re not gay?”

He laughs. “You’re all right, Jane.”

“Jenny.”

“Whatever.” He looks around my apartment. “So you like the apartment?”

“Sure. It’s beautiful. Bigger than what I’m used to. And Cambry’s my hometown, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you grow up around here?”

He looks at me carefully, taking another drink from his beer bottle. “Iowa.”

“A corn-fed Midwestern boy, huh?”

“That’s me.” He takes another pull of beer. “So what did you do today? You’re a wedding planner?”

“We need to work on your listening skills,” I say. “I’m a wedding dress designer. I just opened Bliss here in town.” This fails to elicit any reaction. “I had a fitting in the city for a very irritating bride, and then I took a walk in Central Park, and then I went to see my, uh, friends.”

He gives me an incredulous look. “Not the ex-husband and his lovely wife?”

“How did you—Yes.” He cocks an eyebrow. “And their beautiful new baby,” I add.

“Are you shitting me?”

“Not that it’s your business, but we’ve stayed friends.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes, we have. Your dog growled at me, by the way. While I was covering you with your blankie.”

“You put Mother Teresa to shame. Back to the ex… Why would you stay friends? Isn’t that torture?”

“Are you married, Leo?”

“Do I look married?”

“Divorced? Separated? Are you a therapist? In other words, do you know anything about me or Owen or Ana-Sofia or marriage and divorce? Huh? Do you?”

“No on all fronts, and Ana-Sofia, sweet. That is a smokin’ hot name. Is she beautiful?”

“Some people find her attractive.”

He smiles. Just a little, but it works.

“Yeah, she’s gorgeous,” I admit. “As for why we stayed friends, maybe he was so devastated by our breakup that he couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing me anymore. Maybe we still share a very special bond and despite marriage not working out, we want to stay in each other’s lives. Maybe I really admire and respect his—”

“Stop, stop, I can’t stand any more.” Leo gets up and glances at the ceiling. “Call someone about that light. I just moved here myself and don’t know anyone. Oh, and could you have him stop down at my place? My toaster doesn’t work unless I plug it in the hallway.”

I look at him for a second. “You blew a fuse. That’s probably why my light won’t go on.”

“Ah. Fascinating.”

“Where’s the fuse box?”

“What’s a fuse box?”

“Are you serious? How did you get this job?”

“I already told you. Good looks and charm.”

“I can’t wait to meet the charm part. Come on, I’ll show you what a fuse box is, pretty boy. Take me to your cellar. Do you know where that is?”

We go out my front door, through the gate, where I earn another snarl from Loki. “That dog is really good-looking and charming,” I say.

“He’s old. Be respectful. The cellar’s through here.” He lets me into his apartment, into a tiny foyer, which opens into a large living room. There’s an upright piano topped with piles of paper and music books. It’s too dark to see anything else.

“This way,” he says, pointing toward the small, sleek kitchen. He opens the cellar door, and we go down. It occurs to me that I’m going into a dark place with a stranger, and even as I think the thought, I know this guy is no threat to me at all.

“You’re surprisingly quiet,” Leo says, clicking on a light.

“I’m assessing the odds of you murdering me down here.”

“And?”

“I hereby deem you harmless.”

“How emasculating,” he says. “What are you looking for again?”

“This, my son. Behold the fuse box,” I say, pointing to the gray box on the wall. I flip open the panel and, sure enough, a switch is over to the right instead of the left. I push it back. “Modern technology. Show me your toaster.”

His toaster is plugged into the same outlet as the coffeepot, which is on the same circuit as the microwave. “Just move the toaster in over there and you should be fine,” I tell him. “This is an old house. You might get an electrician in here to update the amperage.”

“Did you learn all this in wedding school?”

He’s tall. The kitchen light makes his hair gleam with copper, and the line of his jaw is sharp and strong.

“The eye-fucking, Jane. It has to stop.” But he smiles as he says it.

“So you teach down here?” I ask, stepping back. Since he made himself at home upstairs, I do the same, flipping on a light and wandering through the living room. A gray couch and red chair complement the red-and-blue Oriental rug. There’s a bookcase filled with tomes about the great composers. A bust of Beethoven glares at me next to a photo of a lake surrounded by pine trees.

The place is very, very neat and, aside from Beethoven, oddly devoid of personality, which isn’t what I’d expect from Leo, not that I know him well, obviously. But still. I’d expect sloppy and welcoming, not sterile and…well, sterile. It looks like a model home, aside from the sheet music.

“So you just teach piano, or do you play anywhere?” I ask.

“I just teach. Sometimes I compose a score for something.”

“Like a movie?”

He smiles. “No, nothing that complicated. Audio books, mostly.”

“Neat. Did you go to school for music?”

“Yep. Juilliard.”

“Really? Wow, Leo. Very impressive. Why don’t you perform anywhere? You must be great.”

“In the world of concert pianists, I’m probably a B minus.”

“In the world of humans, I bet you’re great.”

“What do you know? You listen to country music.” Another smile.

“How narrow-minded of you. Taylor Swift is a musical genius.”

“Stevie Wonder is a musical genius, Jane. Taylor Swift is a woman still bemoaning what happened to her in high school.”

“It’s Jenny. My name is Jenny. So you do listen to Taylor Swift.”

“I don’t. But I don’t live in a cave, either.”

“No, this is a very nice place. Very tidy.” I reach out to touch a key on the piano. “Can you play me something?”

“Sure,” he says. He leans over the keys and taps out a few notes. “And that was ‘Lightly Row.’ Any more requests?”

“How about ‘Paparazzi’ by Lady Gaga?”

“Get out,” he says, leaning against the piano. There’s that smile again. He slides his hands into his pockets. “Thanks for fixing my toaster.”

“I didn’t touch your toaster.”

“Well, you can touch my toaster anytime you want, Jenny Tate.”

So. He does know my name. And he’s flirting. And he’s tall and lanky and his face is really fun to look at, all angular planes and wide smile and lovely crinkles around his eyes.

His smile drops.

“Don’t get any ideas, missy,” he says.

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like, ‘Hey, my husband married someone else and has a new baby and I’m still single but there’s an incredibly hot guy who lives downstairs, so why not?’ I’m for recreation only.”

“I’m not thinking those things, but bravo on your excellent self-esteem.”

He goes to the foyer, opens the door and waits for me to follow, which I do. “You’re thinking all those things. It’s written all over your face.”

“You know, Leo, in the day and a half we’ve known each other, I don’t remember pinning you to the ground and forcing myself on you—”

“Yeah, I hope I’d remember that, too.”

“—but I’m really not interested in you. Besides, you have all those moms and thirtysomethings who are dying to learn piano, as the kids are calling it these days. So go recreate with them, pal.”

A smile tugs at his mouth. “You want to have dinner this week?”

I open my mouth, close it, then open it again. “On a date?”

He throws his hands in the air. “What did I just say? No, not on a date.”

“For recreation?”

“For dinner.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to eat, or I’ll die,” he says. “Never mind. It’s a bad idea. The offer’s been revoked. Bye, Jenny. See you around.”

He smiles as he closes the door, gently, in my face.

It’s only when I get back to my apartment that I realize he left the flowers on my coffee table.

Chapter 6: Rachel

MY MOOD OVER the next few days is shiny and hard and relentless. Nothing can get me down—not Charlotte putting a meatball in her diaper, not Rose’s tantrum at the grocery store when I wouldn’t let her swim with the lobsters, not Grace stonily telling me she loves Aunt Jenny more. I’m so, so relieved about Adam, and filled with energy. The house has never been cleaner. The girls and I weeded the flower beds—well, they played with shovels while I weeded. I baked and froze eight loaves of banana bread.

It’s only at night that my stomach aches.

On Monday, I take the girls to nursery school for their four hours of doing exactly what we do at home—reading, singing, crafts, snacks—and then go over to Jenny’s to help her unpack and organize and clean. She asks how I am; I tell her I’m great, and we leave it at that. I invite Mom to have lunch on Tuesday, and the girls are sweet and affectionate with her. I listen to her stories about Dad—I even encourage them, nodding and smiling as if I’ve never heard them before. When she leaves and the girls are still asleep, I bake so much that when the girls wake up, I put them in the minivan and drop off cupcakes for Jenny, another batch for her nice building super—though why a two-family house needs a super is a mystery—and three dozen for the homeless shelter.

On Wednesday, we have Mommy and Me swimming, and when we’re in the pool, Clarice Vanderberger tells me I sure am in a good mood. I smile and say yes, what’s not to be happy about, gorgeous weather we’re having. Then I slosh over to Grace, who’s a little too good of a swimmer and seems to be in love with Melissa, the swimming instructor, and resentful of the fact that Melissa is helping Rose.

“Can you believe Jared Brewster is actually going ahead and marrying that woman?” Elle Birkman asks me as her son laps pool water. God knows what kind of chemicals and germs and bodily fluids are in the pool, but she doesn’t tell him to stop.

“Mama! Mama! Mama! Watch!” Rose orders as she dips her chin in the water as Melissa holds her. “Face in, Mama!”

“Honey, that’s so good!” I say. “Oh, Charlotte, honey, don’t drink the water. It’s only for swimming.”

“Hunter’s drinking it!” Charlotte says. Grace tugs my hand.

“Hunter, honey, it’s yucky.”

Elle doesn’t chime in. “I mean, men will be men, but he doesn’t have to marry her,” she says instead. “Has he talked to you about it? It’s hard to believe he’ll go through with it.”

Jared is my oldest friend. Jenny and I have always been so close that it was hard for me to find another person I liked as much, but Jared was special. The Brewsters lived up the hill from us, so technically, we were neighbors, though his house was really posh; they even had a live-in housekeeper. He was that rarest of boys—clean, for one, and nice, the type who’d ask you if you’d read a book or seen a TV show, then listen as you answered. Riding the school bus cemented our friendship; we sat together every day from kindergarten through eighth grade. He went to Phillips Exeter Academy for high school, but even then, we stayed in touch. Mom used to ask if we were dating—and pray that we were—but we weren’t. It wasn’t like that. But he’s kind and nice and funny and comfortable as flannel pajamas. In addition to being my oldest friend, he’s Adam’s coworker at Brewster, Buckley and Bowman, or Triple B, as they call it.

So I’m not about to gossip behind his back.

“You guys talking about Jared?” Claudia calls from the other side of the pool, unfettered by loyalty.

“Yes,” Elle says at the same time I say no. Grace yanks on my hand again, and Elle tows Hunter through the water to Claudia’s side of the pool for a better gossip partner.

In the changing room as I wrestle my damp daughters back into their little dresses, Elle strips off her suit to make sure everyone—including the kids—is treated to a view of her new breasts. Claudia rolls her eyes, and I smile back. Personally, I thought the “before” pair was more attractive, but Elle insisted that Hunter had ruined her body.

The body looks pretty great to me.

She has a bikini wax.

So did the woman in the picture.

In fact, Elle’s body is pretty damn perfect. No stretch marks… She had a C-section two weeks before her due date. The Hollywood, she called it. The scar is barely visible. Her ass is round and high, her stomach perfectly toned.

I’m suddenly cold.

Is it possible that Elle sent the picture?

“Mommy, wrong foot, wrong foot, wrong foot!” Rose yells cheerfully. She loves the echo in here. She’s right, though. I switch feet and have better luck getting her little sneaker on.

Adam doesn’t even like Elle. Says she’s a climber. But maybe he does like her. I don’t know why I’m thinking about it. That picture was sent by mistake.

My stomach doesn’t feel so good.

“Okay, girls, sit tight. Mommy’s going to get dressed, too.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them, Rachel,” says Kathleen Rhodes. She has two sets of twins, ages seven and four—another in-vitro mom—and she’s been really kind and helpful, loaning me books on getting your baby to sleep through the night, inviting us to playdates. Not many people want three kids in addition to their own. Kathleen doesn’t mind a bit.

“Thanks,” I say.

I pull the curtain behind me in the changing room and peel off my wet suit. It’s a retro-style one-piece, red with white polka dots and wide shoulder straps. I liked it when I bought it, but now it seems matronly.

Well. I am a matron, after all.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. Unlike the mirrors in Nordstrom or Bergdorf, it’s not a magical mirror, making me look taller and more slender than I really am.

For the most part, I love my body. I’m proud of what it did, percolating three babies at once, nursing them afterward. There’s a little pooch of skin that no amount of crunches has been able to vanquish, but I’m the same size as I was in college. My breasts fared pretty well, too. Granted, they’re not what they were when I was twenty, but they’re hardly embarrassments. In fact, Kathleen once said she envied how I bounced back from pregnancy. Told me it took her four years. She still carries some extra weight, but she carries it well.

Adam has always been complimentary…though now that I think of it, maybe not as much lately.

My body is a mother’s body. It’s hopefully a MILF’s body, but it’s a mother’s body, no doubt. My stretch marks, once a lurid red, have faded to tiny silvery marks, like a small school of fish. I can feel them more than I can really see them. On the rare occasions that I get to take a nice long bath, I find myself stroking them as I read.

I’m average. That’s the word for it. This is an average body. It’s not bad. For a nearly forty-year-old mother of triplets, it’s really good.

But it’s not Elle’s body.

“Elle works out with a personal trainer five days a week,” Kathleen tells me ten minutes later when I admit my insecurity. We’re hunched over, buckling the kids in their car seats. Our cars, both minivans, are side by side. “Do you want to stick your kids in day care so you can go to the gym? Or drink kale shakes for breakfast?”

“No,” I said. “I definitely don’t.”

“And you’re fucking gorgeous, Rachel,” she says. I’ve always been both shocked and impressed by her potty mouth. “Edward, if you bite me again, you won’t have any dessert until Christmas.” She turns back to me. “You okay, Rach?”

“Oh, sure,” I say, sliding the door shut. “I just… I don’t know. I guess I’m at the age where I’m getting…”

“Invisible?”

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but there it is. Very few men look at a woman wrangling three toddlers. And I don’t have time to look at them. “Yeah. Invisible.”

“I know how you feel. The other day, this guy at the deli—you know, Gold’s? The short guy with earrings?” I nod. “Well, he handed me my baloney and said, ‘Here you go, beautiful,’ and I was so fucking grateful! I mean, I used to get that all the time. All the time. And now, nothing. It takes longer and longer to pull off even not bad. Beautiful left on my thirty-fifth birthday. So I wanted to kiss this guy and buy him a car.” She hands Edward a juice box, gives one to Niall and closes the door. “Enjoy it while you still have it. You want to get coffee?”

“Maybe next week,” I tell her. “I think I’ll drop by Adam’s office for lunch.”

I call our babysitter from the car. “Hi, Donna, it’s Rachel Carver.”

“Donna! Donna!” Charlotte shouts happily, and the other girls pick up the chant.

I smile. “I know this is last-minute, but I was wondering if you were free to babysit the girls today.”

“I’d love to,” she says instantly. “When do you want me to come by?”

“Twenty minutes?” I suggest.

Donna Ignaciato is every mother’s dream—a retired widow who lives down the street, loves children and was deprived of her grandchildren when her son moved to Oregon last year. She’s the kind of grandmother my mom is not—hands-on, affectionate, completely at home, the kind of babysitter who will take the laundry out of the dryer and fold it, and leave the girls cleaner and happier than when you left. I haven’t used her much—just when Jenny hasn’t been free, because she loves to spend time with the girls. My mom isn’t the babysitting type. “All of them?” she said when I asked her to watch the kids this past winter. “At the same time?”

“No, Lenore,” Adam said. “We want you to lock two of them in the cellar, and just rotate them out.” I smiled, and Mom whipped out her ultimate guilt answer.

“If your father was alive, we could do it together, but…”

I let her off the hook, as I always do. It’s sort of my job—the softer, more understanding sister. Besides, I’d worry constantly if Mom was in charge.

When Donna gets to the house, the girls swarm her, and I go upstairs and shower. Blow-dry my hair, put on makeup, dress carefully in a pink-and-black-checked dress and pink cardigan, the dangly silver earrings Adam gave me for Christmas, and the trifold, heart-shaped locket that has a picture of each of my girls. A bracelet. Black heels—but low, because it’s daytime. Perfume, even.

Five days ago, I accused my husband of having an affair. And while it’s understandable why I thought what I did—and though he’s very generously let it go—damage has been done.

“You’re pretty, Mama,” Grace says when I come downstairs. She kisses my knee, and I stroke her silky hair.

“I should be back around three,” I tell Donna, who’s already cutting up apple slices for a snack. “Girls, listen to Donna, and have fun, okay? Give Mama kisses!”

I stop at the gourmet shop that’s just around the corner from Jenny’s shop. Maybe I’ll drop by after my lunch, if I have time.

“Can I help you?” the girl asks, and I order Adam’s favorite sandwich, a turkey-and-avocado-and-bacon panini. Broccoli salad. Two green teas. Three chocolate cookies. For myself, a green salad. That pooch of skin is all too clear in my mind.

Brewster, Buckley and Bowman, Attorneys at Law, is in a dignified old building overlooking the Hudson River. It’s on the same block as my father’s old office, which always gives me a pang; I loved visiting him at work, seeing him in his dentist whites.

I go into the venerable lobby of Triple B, which has been around for seventy years and employs more than forty lawyers. They handle everything from divorce to taxes to criminal defense. Adam’s specialty is corporate law; boring to the outsider, but quite interesting once you understand what he does. Well. I have to think so. I’m married to the guy.

“Rachel!” the receptionist exclaims when I go into the office. “It’s been too long. You here to see Adam?”

“I brought him lunch,” I say, feeling the start of a blush. You’d think I wouldn’t feel shy; I’ve been coming here for years.

“I’ll just buzz him and let him know you’re here,” Lydia says. “In case he’s with a client.”

“Thank you very much,” I say. I flash another smile, gripping the handles of the deli bag more tightly.

“You don’t have to be so shy, you know,” Lydia says.

Oh, okay. I’ll stop, then. All I was waiting for was you to say that. I know she means well. I smile—awkwardly—and let my eyes slide away.

“Hey!” A man comes into the foyer. “How are you, Rach?”

“Hi, Jared,” I say, feeling a genuine smile start.

“Bringing the luckiest guy in the world some lunch?”

“I am indeed. How’s Kimber?”

“She’s great. Want to see a picture? We went to Provincetown last weekend. Had a blast.”

“Sure.” Got to love a guy who whips out his phone to show off pictures of his fiancée.

He shows me seven pictures of his beloved. I’ve met Kimber a few times, and she’s quite a beauty, though I admit to being surprised the first time I saw her. Her hair is dyed a pinkish red that was never intended to be thought of as natural, she has a full-sleeve tattoo on one arm and wears brilliant peacock colors for eye shadow and liner. “You can just feel how happy she is in these pictures,” I say.

Jared grins. “Thanks, Rach. Listen, I have to run. Got a lunch that’s so boring, I might actually stab myself in the eye just to keep from falling asleep. Hey, let’s have dinner, the four of us, okay?”

“That’d be great.”

“Give the girls a kiss for me,” he says.

“Adam will see you now,” Lydia says.

“Lydia! Did you make her wait? Honestly. Rach, just go down to his office next time. You’re his wife. You have rights.” Jared gives me a mock-serious look, then leaves.

Dinner with him and Kimber would be nice, I think as I make my way down the hall to Adam’s small but lovely office. It’s so nice to see Jared smitten. In the past, he’d always dated country-club types, and I can’t remember one relationship lasting even a year. With Kimber, he met her and it was the thunderbolt, as he said.

Same with Adam and me.

“Babe!” Adam says as I go in.

“Hi. I brought lunch,” I say, going behind his desk to kiss him on the cheek.

“Oh. Wow, that’s so nice of you. Um…well, uh, no, it’s fine.”

“Did you have plans?”

“No, no. I mean, yeah, I was going to grab something with another lawyer, but it’s fine. Just let me send him a text.” His thumbs fly, his phone cheeps and he stands up. “Close the door so we can have some privacy, okay? What did you bring me?”

“Turkey and avocado.”

“’Atta girl.” He smiles at me and gets up.

Adam’s office has a little couch and chair, in addition to his desk, and we sit there as I unpack our lunch. He checks his phone, then slides it into his pocket.

Sometimes I feel like whipping that thing out a window. My cheeks hurt, which means I’ve been clenching my teeth.

“How are the girls?” he asks. “Are they with your sister?”

“No, with Donna,” I say. “Jenny’s working.”

“Right. But does she have regular hours and stuff?”

He’s never really understood how much work Jenny has had to do to get where she is, or how much time goes into making a wedding dress. He’s a guy, after all.